CO₂ removal from CO₂-CH₄ gas mixture using different solvents and hollow Fiber Membranes

Commercial hollow fiber membrane modules have been investigated for the selective removal of CO2 from the CO2-CH4 gas mixture. Experiments were carried out to evaluate the effectiveness of different membrane modules and different solvents for the removal of CO2 from a gas mixture containing 10% CO2 and 90% CH4. Three different membrane modules with fibers made from polypropylene, super phobic polypropylene, and silicone rubber were used in this study. The effects of gas and liquid flow rates, temperature, solvent type and concentration, and membrane module type were investigated. The experimental results indicated that CO2 removal increased with increasing the liquid flow rate, decreasing gas flow rate, and increasing solvent concentration. For physical absorption, the CO2 removal decreased with increasing temperature, whereas temperature had negligible effect using chemical absorption. The polypropylene module showed the best performance in terms of CO2 flux.